InfoPath Dev

Hello guys,

 I want to get an idea of whether or not InfoPath has the functionality that I need before I embark on learning a new program. I am tyring to upgrade my departments system of managing action items and meeting notes. Currently we enter actions and notes within Word and manually export and update the actions in Excel. When you have a big department this can get frustrating.

Using InfoPath (2003) I would like to enter action items and meetings in one place (a nice form) and where I can export the action items into excel.

I would need the ability to pull up old meeting forms and make changes/sort of like a running list and the ability to export sections of forms to Excel.

You guys know best, please tell me if you think this is a good application of InfoPath 2003. Thanks

Well - InfoPath can export to Excel.

But it would be a one way deal - you export into Excel, and the actions are now disconnected from your original form data (which is what is probably happening in your current process as well).

Have you thought about just using SharePoint lists?

Thank you Hillary. I will look into a sharepoint solution.

Ok Hillary,

 I've watched some videos at YouTube University and practiced designing a few forms myself and I think the InfoPath sharepoint duo may work.

My question is: when I open up a form, can I automatically have previously saved action items from the sharepoint list open up in a section of the form.

So this is the situation I imagine for lets say a sales meeting:

Week one during the meeting you get three action items and input them to a form:

    1. Visit customer to see how they like the product
    2. Check with purchasing department to see if we can handle any more orders for the year
    3. Hire new sales guy to help with the load.

At the end of that meeting the actions are uploaded to sharepoint action items table.

During the week someone goes to the sharepoint table and updates action item two as complete.

 Week Two of meeting, you open the form and you see the two remaining incomplete actions and you have the option to add more continuing the list

    2. Check with purchasing department to see if we can handle any more orders for the year
    3. Hire new sales guy to help with the load.
    4. Email customers christmas thank you cards

REPEAT! :)

Thanks Hillary, im getting excited about putting together a new sharepoint site and introducing a more efficient process.

Well, the initial issue I can see is that if you are using InfoPath + SharePoint, your step here:

basde00c:

At the end of that meeting the actions are uploaded to sharepoint action items table.

Is not straightforward. Subimtting items from a repeating section of an InfoPath form to a list requires code, qRules, or CAML with each item submitted individually - that's not to say it can't be done, but I don't want to gloss over that.

In fact, when I suggested a SharePoint list - in this case, I honestly wasn't thinking in terms of it being used with an InfoPath form. I was thinking just a task list would cover this scenario - if you added a column for "Project" or whatever, so you could group by project.